Long Trail: Tale Of Two Mountains

07/20/10 7:55AM
Tom Slayton

(Host)
We return now to our series, "The Long Trail: Vermont's Footpath Through History."

The
trail snakes through forests and marshes and crosses countless mountaintops and
lookouts on its 270-mile route across the Green Mountains.

Two
of the state's most famous summits are connected by the Long Trail. But as VPR
Commentator Tom Slayton explains, the mountains couldn't be more different.

(Slayton)
This is a tale of two mountains. One is Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in
the state; the other is Camel's Hump, its neighbor 30 miles to the south. They
are two of the most distinctive mountains in Vermont, alike in being big,
rock-capped, and beautiful, but different in their human history - and so today
they present us with very different aspects - different personalities, if you
will.

The
quickest way to draw the distinction between them is to point out that Camel's
Hump is completely wild and Mount Mansfield is not. Mansfield is one of the
most highly developed mountains in the state, while Camel's Hump sits in the
midst of a wild forest preserve that has never been developed and which the
State of Vermont has pledged never will be.

(Mansfield tower work)

It
should be said that despite the telecommunications towers, and workers, like
these, on part of its summit, and large ski complex on its eastern slopes,
Mount Mansfield's western slope and most of its summit ridge remain open and
undeveloped. It is still a grand, spectacular mountain with plenty of
untrammeled territory on and around it.

(air ambi off summit)

Theron Dean, courtesy UVM

Crouching Lion (Camel's Hump) from East

It's
windy up here but Camel's Hump is truly wild - the only major mountain in
Vermont completely free of ski lifts and radio towers. Writer, teacher and
environmentalist John Elder of Middlebury College reflected recently on the
historic importance of Camel's Hump:

(Elder) "Historically, Camel's
Hump is also a monument to the vision of Joseph Battell, who in the end of the
19th century bought a lot of mountainous land precisely to protect
it from the rapacious cutting that he'd seen all around him in the Green
Mountains. So when we look at Camel's Hump we have a legacy not only that's not only a natural legacy, but a legacy of a certain kind of thinking that has made Vermont what it is
today."

(Slayton)
The Long Trail -- Vermont's special "Footpath in the Wilderness" -- that
follows the Green Mountains from Massachusetts to Canada, links Mansfield and the Hump. You can, without too much trouble, walk
the 30 or so miles between the two summits in less than a week.

Mansfield
is spectacular and grand; its bare summit ridge extends for more than a mile,
providing ever-broader views as it rises in waves of sedges and stone. By
contrast, Camel's Hump is subtle and elegantly reclusive.

Hikers,
like these, reach its open, rocky summit only after hiking more than three
miles through unbroken forests.

Everyone
is attracted to "highest" mountains, and Mansfield is no exception. More than
40,000 people a year attain its summit, either by hiking or driving up the toll
road. And because its eastern ridges form a great snow-collecting bowl, it has
been the site of a ski area since the earliest days of the sport. Gondolas like
this one bring skiers in the winter and visitors in the summer.

(Mansfield gondola)

(Slayton)
Skiing is a wonderful sport, and a true part of Vermont's sporting heritage,
but it is impossible to look down from the mountain's summit crags at the
conglomeration of lodges, condominiums, parking lots, and restaurants at its
base -or at the telecommunication towers clustered around the Nose--and not
feel that the wild essence of Mt. Mansfield has been deeply compromised.

(wind of camels hump)

The
view from Camel's Hump also offers plenty of evidence of the march of
civilization - Interstate 89, a four-lane superhighway, slices through the
Winooski Valley just to the north.

But
the overall feeling atop the Hump is one of being somehow apart, elevated above
the wide forest and the rolling Vermont landscape on a high stony pedestal, in
the center of a great green and blue mandala.

John
Elder says that is deeply important for Vermonters as well as Vermont:

(Elder) "There are many advantages to our modern
connected world, but from time to time we need to be able to step back and hear
the wind and also to encounter the free flow of our own thoughts, so that we
can come back to our day-to-day lives and our work refreshed, because we live
once more in a larger world."

(Slayton)
Mt. Mansfield remains a grand and glorious mountain, and the activities there
are an important part of today's Vermont. But because Camel's Hump has been
firmly protected by the State of Vermont, it is something even more important -
an incomparable wilderness legacy for future generations of Vermonters to
wonder at, treasure, and enjoy.

(Host) Tom Slayton is editor emeritus of Vermont
Life and editor of "A Century in the Mountains."